


between two hands held

by Edoro



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Strap-Ons, Threesome - M/M/M, Trans Character, brief mention of past trauma, mind sharing, minorest canon character Thomas Whitman (is not an OC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 14:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edoro/pseuds/Edoro
Summary: During the long journey following the fall of Gilead, Cuthbert and Alain spend some quality time with a friend and fellow gunslinger.





	between two hands held

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Dark Tower fandom! I hope you enjoy this pornography I have lovingly crafted for you. Watch this space for further fic developments. Thomas Whitman is a minor character mentioned once or twice by name in Roland's flashbacks as a fellow gunslinger-in-training, and never again, and thus I have appropriated him as my own, but _technically speaking_ he is not an OC.
> 
> I can't believe 'mind-sharing' is not a tag already for this fandom or on AO3 in general. The touch has so much sexy potential!
> 
> Roland is Sir Not Appearing In This Fic. It can't all be about you, buddy.
> 
> Title is from the song Sweet Spot, by Wild Beasts.

Alain finds Jamie tucked into a corner of the inn’s common room, watching people. At first he’s concerned, but when he sits and reaches for Jamie’s hand, he feels his friend’s mind is at ease. Sometimes Jamie needs to hide away, but right now he’s simply enjoying a peaceful moment watching and listening and not being seen. 

As always, he takes a moment to enjoy the sudden rush of the-world-through-Jamie’s-eyes. Or ears, rather. For Jamie, the speech of all the patrons, the rustle and creak of clothing and boots and floorboards, the crackle of the fire, even the cheerful chaos and hubbub of the kitchen - which Alain can feel if he reaches for it, but cannot hear - all mixes together into an organic sort of music. At times a crowded place like this can overwhelm him, but he seems well able to handle it today.

Jamie does not look at him or speak to him, but his fingers curl briefly against Alain’s to indicate he’s noticed him, and in his mind is a question.

“All is well,” Alain assures him. “I simply wish to speak to you.” He savors, for a moment, the anticipation of what he is about to ask for, and then says, “Bert and I wish to take Tommy to bed tonight.”

He is unaccustomed to planning a tryst in such a fashion. With Cuthbert it is regular enough he cannot call it spontaneous, though there are surely times they surprise each other. They fumble quietly with each other of a night while their friends sleep, and take the opportunities for more involved intimacy - a private room, half an hour alone on watch together - when they arise. Thomas joining in is a rarer thing, though usually not planned so much as an accident of fortune.

This, though, they’ve been planning in a vague way for some time, and more concretely all day. For months yet they’ve been working Thomas into their intimacies, employing a delicate touch to get him relaxed and accustomed to such. Then, earlier today, when Jamie came riding back to tell them he’d spied the smoke of a town on the horizon and that they’d likely spend the evening in lodgings of some sort, Cuthbert had spoken with Alain and then approached Thomas about the chance they had, and Thomas had been game. All day Alain has carried the pleasant smoldering anticipation of the night to come.

Sometimes it pleases Jamie to watch. There are things it frightens him to see, though, things that remind him of a time he’d rather forget. Alain presses his meaning gently into Jamie’s mind, that they’re planning to have Thomas in a way he may not want to see, though he’s welcome to stay if he wishes, for as long as he wishes.

He hates having to take such care. Not because it is an imposition, but because it reminds him of what Jamie confessed to him and Cuthbert some years back, what he realized then he’d known since he was a child and could feel it in Jamie’s mind, too young to understand what it meant. He hates to think of how Jamie was ill-used as a boy. He hates to know the things which Jamie hasn’t told him, but which have come into his mind from years of sharing dreams and thoughts.

_ Come here Jamie, let’s play a game. _ Alain pushes the thought away before it can cross over into Jamie’s mind. It is an echo in his own thoughts, he is sure, for it has a whole different texture when Jamie thinks it.

Right now, he doesn’t wish to think of that. He reaches out towards Cuthbert, who is sitting nestled against Thomas’s side across the room, and feels the thrum of his anticipation and arousal. He’s teasing Tommy, winding a hand up into his hair and murmuring in his ear, no doubt of how he intends to debauch him. Their eagerness chases way the uneasiness in his mind.

“Alright,” Jamie says quietly. In his mind is understanding, acceptance, amusement - an image of Cuthbert’s long and fine-boned hand writing  _ Fuck Tommy brainless _ into a book of appointments in his flowing, narrow script. 

Alain makes himself a conduit, so that Jamie may feel Cuthbert’s wicked, teasing eagerness and Thomas’s shivery, delighted acceptance. He raises Jamie’s hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it.  He doesn’t take his leave right away, though. This is a thing they can all four share, a thing that is safe, a thing he loves doing. He opens himself between them, letting their feelings flow into and through him.

He becomes a pane of clear glass, a mirror that reflects three ways. His mind goes quiet, his body distant, and all he feels is what the three of them are experiencing. That he alone can feel this saddens him sometimes, for it is a joy that words cannot express.

Bert feels the touch of his mind and glories in being watched, being wanted, slides his fingertips up the back of Tommy’s neck and into his thick dark hair, mouth against his ear, voice low and sensuous and amused - Tommy shivers, his whole body tingling pleasantly, barely hearing the words but thinking of the whisper of fast-moving water at night, the moon peeking through heavy clouds, starshine in the vault of the heavens, the electric edgy heat of a gathering midnight storm - and Jamie sips from their excitement as from a cup of cold, clear water after a long, hot day, slaking the thirst he carries around with him, distant enough to feel safe but close enough to enjoy their enjoyment -

and Alain feels it all and is it all and is each of them and is each of them feeling the others, and when finally he comes back to himself he is achingly aroused and dizzy with the enormity of his love for each of them, their love for each other.

“I think I’ll take my leave of you now,” he says, and lets go of Jamie’s hand. He takes the opportunity to discreetly adjust himself - earning another wave of amusement from Jamie - and then stands to cross the room.

In their own shadowy nook, Cuthbert has all but climbed into Thomas’s lap. Alain approaches them slowly, unnoticed at first. Thomas has his head tipped back, and Cuthbert is delicately tracing the edge of his hairline, the shell of his ears, the line of his jaw and his lips.  Loathe to interrupt, Alain stands and simply watches for a time. Eventually, though, he makes himself move, for this is becoming unseemly to do in such a public place.

“Time we went somewhere more private,” he says, reaching out to put his hand on Cuthbert’s shoulder. He curls his fingers around Cuthbert’s slim neck, and feels the beat of his pulse there.

Thomas jerks his head up, staring with wide eyes. Alain touches his mind gently - he’s still thinking of the play of light and shadow on the soot-blackened beams of the ceiling, still dreamy and dazed from the pleasure of Bert’s clever fingers stroking his face so tenderly.

“Time to go, Tommy,” Bert says, stealing a kiss before sliding off his lap. “Al wants us upstairs, so we can debauch you in peace.”

“Yes,” Thomas agrees, but distantly, and he doesn’t get up until Cuthbert takes his hands and urges him gently to his feet.

“Alright, Tommy?” Cuthbert asks.

“He’s alright,” Alain says. “Just distracted, as you know he gets.” During times like these he always likes to keep a curling tendril of his awareness in Thomas’s mind, for he drifts off so easily, and it can be hard to tell if he’s becoming distressed. He’s excited for this, but his focus has simply wandered.

He and Cuthbert gently steer Thomas up the stairs, and by the time they reach the room he has mostly come back to the present situation.

“I should like to paint a fire someday,” he says, as Cuthbert draws him down to sit on the bed. “Might be a trick to get the colors right, but I’ve some ideas. I’d like if we had a fire in the room -” his voice takes on a bold, teasing edge - “for then I could paint the both of you wearing nothing but the firelight, I could.”

“I’d like that very much,” Cuthbert says, and takes Thomas’s face in his hands to kiss him.

There isn’t a fireplace, but there is a wide coal brazier beside the bed. Alain lights this to drive off any chill, as well as for the light. Watery afternoon light still comes in through the window, but soon it will be dark.

Slowly, with care, he takes his boots off and sets them aside. He is taut with anticipation, mouth dry, stomach fluttering, and every second of deliberate ritual draws that sensation tighter. Next he removes his gunbelts and hangs them carefully over a bedpost, well within reach. That always makes him feel naked in a way simply being unclothed does not.

“Remind me,” Thomas breathes into the narrow space between his and Cuthbert’s mouths, “what it is you wish to do? I know you spoke with me of it earlier, I do, only -”

“Only Tommy’s got a wandering mind.” Cuthbert chuckles and kisses him, soft and wet. 

Kneeling at their feet, Alain is near enough to hear the noise it makes. He pulls Thomas’s boots off, and then shuffles forward between his legs to reach for the buckles of his gunbelts, feeling very daring. The guns themselves he will not touch, not without an invitation to, but his hands brush their grips as he negotiates the buckles, and at that intimacy all the hairs on his arms stand up.

“Well,” Cuthbert says, his clever fingers working at the ties of Thomas’s shirt, “first we’re going to get you good and relaxed - and nude, aye, so we can see every lovely inch of you.” One slim hand slides into the open neck of Thomas’s shirt. “Might be one of us can give you a suck, if you’d like. Would you like that, Tommy? Look, Al’s already on his knees for you, and he looks lovely with a cock in his mouth, doesn’t he?” With his other hand he takes Thomas by the chin and turns his face, so his eyes meet Alain’s.

Alain licks his lips slowly, looking up. Thomas draws in a shuddering breath, his eyes dark and wide in the dim light. He reaches out and puts one palm against the side of Alain’s head, stroking at his curls.

“He looks lovely anytime,” Thomas says frankly. In his mind is the wide blue daytime sky, and fluffy white clouds drifting delicately across that expanse, and the heavy golden sunlight of a late summer afternoon. “You’re both so lovely. I - I think I’d like that, Alain, if you wish to do it.”

The shape of the answer in his mind isn’t reluctant nor much unsure, but because Alain knows how badly Thomas wants to please and also how nervy he can be about having someone’s mouth on him, he reaches up and puts his hand over Thomas’s and says, “I only wish to if you’d like, Tommy.”

“I’d like,” Thomas whispers, face flushing.

Cuthbert untucks his shirt from his jeans. “Arms up, Tommy,” he says cheerfully. He has to say it twice before Thomas realizes what he’s asking and raises his arms so Bert can pull his shirt off over his head.

Alain leans in and kisses the bared expanse of his stomach, hands on his knees. The muscles there tremble with Thomas’s unsteady breath. Slowly, he mouths his way down, following the trail of coarse dark curls that leads from Thomas’s navel down below the waist of his jeans.  He wants to open Tommy’s pants up right now and take his length in his hand, in his mouth - he wants it badly enough his own breath is coming shivery and quick, though he hasn’t hardly been touched.  Instead, though, he strokes slowly up the length of Thomas’s jeans-clad legs and kisses his left hip, just below the swooping jay tattooed there. The contrast between the soft skin and curling hair of Thomas’s body and the rough denim of his jeans is dizzying. He touches Thomas’s mind and sends the feeling on.

All of a sudden Thomas’s breath hitches, and then he makes a low noise that reverberates through him. Alain pulls back and glances up, to see Cuthbert’s clever fingers tweaking and twiddling at his nipples. He rises up from his knees into an awkward half crouch to fasten his mouth over one, teasing at the stiff nub with his lips and tongue until Thomas makes another one of those deep shivering groans.

“That’s not quite the part I wish to watch you sucking,” Cuthbert says. He’s shifted to kneel behind Thomas, chin hooked over his shoulder so he can watch Alain, his eyes gleaming wickedly. “You’re teasing the poor man something terrible, Al.” So saying, he puts his mouth to Tommy’s neck and his hand over the radiant rose over his heart, then draws his hand slowly down the length of Tommy’s body until it meets Alain’s on his hip.

“I don’t hear him complaining,” Alain says. With the two of them bracketing him like this and both touching him, Thomas is in fact more focused on what’s happening than he typically is.

“‘Twould be churlish to complain,” Thomas says, sounding a little dazed. “Though you two  _ are _ teasing. I’ve never met a worse couple of teases, no I have not.”

“We only do it because you let us,” Cuthbert murmurs, hand trailing back up Thomas’s body to his chest, where he begins to trace the delicate lines of the rose with one gentle fingernail. “And you like it. And I did say we were going to take our time with you, Tommy dearest.”

Thomas sags back against Cuthbert, reaching out to slide one hand into Alain’s hair and cup the side of Cuthbert’s face with the other. “Aye, so you did,” he sighs. “And what else do you plan? For you’ve surely driven it right out of my head.”

Alain goes down once more onto his knees, sucking a series of red marks into Tommy’s chest and stomach. This time when he reaches the waist of Tommy’s jeans he doesn’t stop, but nuzzles his cheek into the denim. Cuthbert’s hands come down to make quick work of Tommy’s flies, just as they had the ties of his shirt, and Alain slides his jeans and drawers both down his legs to pool around his ankles.

Again he draws out the moment. He presses wet, open-mouthed kisses to Tommy’s pale thighs, pausing briefly at the old scar - faded now, but the imprint of teeth is still visible even all these years later. He does not linger, for he doesn’t wish to bring back upsetting memories, but he puts his own mouth gently over it as he always does, as if perhaps doing so enough times will drive away the old pain entirely.

Tommy isn’t all the way hard yet; isn’t mostly hard, even. That’s not unusual. He takes coaxing, Tommy does, and Alain is more than happy to work him up to it.

“Oh, we plan to tease you something terrible, Tommy,” Bert says, watching raptly as Alain cups his hips and nuzzles into his groin, mouthing at his soft cock. “Until you can’t think straight - until you can’t think of anything else, I mean. That’ll be some time right there, dear, and the more your silly mind wanders, why, the longer it’ll be.”

Alain licks slowly up his length, then takes the whole of it into his mouth, suckling and laving at it with his tongue until it begins to grow hard in his mouth, hard and heavy on his tongue. He rubs circles against Tommy’s hipbones with his thumbs, careful not to press or grip too hard.

Thomas trembles, thighs twitching as he struggles to stay still. He doesn’t quite succeed, and every time his hips jerk forwards Alain moans encouragingly. Into Tommy’s mind he sends the hot sharp stab of lust he feels at the motion, at the way Tommy’s hand tightens in his hair when he sucks; he sends his own desire to please, how badly he wants to make Tommy feel good, how much he enjoys the weight of a cock in his mouth and the way it feels sliding between his lips and the smell of Tommy’s body, skin and arousal and even the faint smell of the day’s sweat caught on his skin and in his hair.

“Isn’t he good?” Cuthbert says softly, and Alain moans again to be so praised. He’s sinking rapidly into the calm low place that’s like being underwater, like looking up from underwater and seeing the sun and hearing nothing but his own heart - that’s a Tommy thought, he realizes dimly, he’s gotten there so fast because he’s so closely touching Tommy’s mind and Tommy drifts so easily, but because Alain has hold of him he isn’t  _ away _ but  _ down _ , down under the water, surrounded and held and warm, like being naked under the summer sun, like making love to the twilight sky while the air is still warm and close - 

“-and then,” Cuthbert is saying, his voice gone low and breathy like the evening wind, “why, if you’re game for it, I’d like to fuck you, Tommy.”

Tommy and Alain groan longingly at the same time. Alain is not sure who thought the noise first. 

“Bert,” Thomas says, “oh, Bertie, oh, Al -” In his mind, though, he is thinking of the sun pouring heavy and honey gold all over his skin, he is thinking of the night sky, he is thinking of being spread open and filled with heat and pressure, spreading for Bert like a flower for the sun, being filled and full and held safe between the two of them, being cradled in the soft warm place between the sunset and the night sky.

Alain takes that - how lovely a soul Tommy is, even after all these years, even after all the grief they’ve drunk of and all the blood they’ve spilled - and reaches for Bert with it, because Bert is the most beautiful man he’s ever known and Tommy’s thoughts of him - night sky, moon and stars, close soft humid summer air - come closer than any clumsy words he’s ever been able to say and Bert ought to know, he needs to know how gorgeous he is, how good - the moon shining through deep grey clouds, the breathless aching electric moment before the storm breaks - 

Hands grasp him by the hair and pull his head up, Tommy’s cock sliding out of his mouth with an obscene wet pop. He does not understand at first whose hands, or why, only that he was both engulfed and full and now feels suddenly empty and cold, only that he wants to go back to what he was doing.

“Al,” comes Bert’s voice, distantly. He opens his eyes slowly, like a man coming up from a deep sleep. They are Bert’s hands in his hair, he realizes, Bert who made him stop. 

He draws in a ragged breath and whines. He can’t speak because he’s under the water, though he thrills at the thought of opening his mouth and letting it rush in and fill him up, inside and out.

“I could watch you suck him all night,” Bert says, utterly earnest, “only I don’t want him finishing just yet, eh? Come up here with me for a time, let’s give the poor old boy a break.”

Alain stands slowly, his legs terribly unsteady beneath him. It doesn’t feel like much time has gone by, but his knees ache fiercely and the last light is gone from the sky outside, the room wholly dark save for the light of the brazier.  He looks down at Thomas, who is indeed in quite a state: sprawled bonelessly back against Cuthbert with his head lolling back against his shoulder, mouth open, legs spread, flushed all down his chest, muscles of his belly and thighs taut and trembling.

“Yes, you’ve worked him over quite well,” Bert says, and beckons him over. “Worry not, for I kept an eye on him for you in your distracted state.”

Alain crawls onto the bed beside Tommy. Bert lays him gently back, and they shift to bracket him with their bodies and pet his chest and belly while he comes back to himself. The bed is big enough to sleep all five of them together, so there’s plenty of room.

Though he trusts Bert, Alain still nuzzles the side of Tommy’s head and says softly, “Alright, Tommy?”

“Mmm,” Thomas sighs, turning slightly towards him. His mind reaches out, though, and from that Alain can tell he’s alright indeed - driven half-mad with frustrated desire, perhaps, but otherwise fine, and enjoying the attention being lavished on him.  Alain feels quite satisfied at that. It’s no mean task to get Thomas relaxed enough to just enjoy being pleasured, and he certainly worked for it.

“Are you alright, dear?” Cuthbert asks. “For I don’t think I saw you breathe more than thrice this last half hour.”

“Fine,” Alain says, and then, ruefully, because he know it will make Cuthbert laugh, “My jaw is sore.”

It does indeed make Cuthbert laugh. He muffles it against Tommy’s neck, then raises his face to say, “Did’ee hear that, Tommy-o? Your mighty member has defeated even Alain’s skilled mouth, so it has, and I can assure you that’s no mean feat. Why, he once licked me out for a whole afternoon and then ate jerky and horsebread for supper, no problem.”

“Hush your lying tongue,” Alain mumbles, and kisses the side of Tommy’s mouth.

“Isn’t so mighty,” Tommy says after a time, slow and dazed and sounding drunk. “I’d suppose Al’s would be more of a stretch, but you work your jaw all the time already, Bertie, so surely ‘tisn’t a problem.”

Bert - always able to take a joke at his own expense - cackles with good-natured glee at that, patting at Tommy’s chest. “Say true, say true enough!”

“Don’t think it’s fair,” Thomas remarks after another long moment of quiet, “that I’m all the way naked and neither of you are.”

That sets Cuthbert off laughing again, even as he sits up and strips off his shirt. “The man has a point. It isn’t fair at all. Get out of those clothes, Al, and let’s have Tommy paint us wearing naught but firelight.”

Alain sits up and goes to work on his own clothes, his hands clumsy even though he’s eager enough to be skin to skin with the both of them. He wants to watch Cuthbert undress. The sinuous way he pulls his shirt over his head, the way he peels his jeans down his long slim legs, the stunning expanse of warm brown skin revealed - Alain reaches across Tommy to run his fingers down the trail of hair on his belly leading between his legs, fine and dark as a river at night.

Cuthbert lets his fingers reach the thatch of his pubic hair, then takes his wrist and lifts his hand away.

“Not now,” he says, in teasing admonishment. “It’s Tommy’s turn still.”

“Want to watch you touch each other,” Thomas protests vaguely. “You’re so lovely together.” Like the sun and stars, his mind croons, like dappled sunlight through the leaves on a deep forest pool, soft and familiar like well-worn clothes.

“And so you shall, Tommy dear, for I could never refuse such a heartfelt plea.” Cuthbert bends and kisses him, hands planted beside his head, and his hair slips forward to make a fine dark curtain for them. Tommy thinks of good black ink, of nighttime water, and so does Alain, for that’s ever been his favorite thing about kissing Cuthbert.  Thomas reaches up to wind his fingers through Cuthbert’s fine hair, stroking it back from his face and then letting it slide silkily through his fingers. With his other hand he reaches blindly out until he touches Alain, and starts to rub his palm up and down his thigh.  “But not now,” Cuthbert continues. “Right now we’re not done playing with you, Tommy-o.”

“Alright,” Tommy mumbles against Cuthbert’s mouth. His hand slides up Alain’s thigh to the crease of his hip, and his fingers creep inwards. Leisurely, he explores between Alain’s legs, cupping and stroking his balls and tickling at the delicate skin of his inner thighs until finally his hand meets Alain’s cock.

Moaning helplessly into Tommy’s neck, Alain bucks into the loose curl of his fist. Tommy gives him a squeeze and a slow pull, then rubs at the head of it with his broad calloused thumb, so gentle and light as to be a torment.

“Soft,” Tommy says wonderingly - it’s not at all, it’s so hard it almost aches, so taut and begging to be touched, but Alain can feel what Tommy means in his mind, how silky-warm the skin, how spongy under the press of his fingers, how delicate piece of himself he’s let Tommy wrap his big and gun-roughened fingers around - “And warm, too, and I can feel your heart here -” and the pulse of his desire, his need to be touched - “and you make such pretty noises, you do, oh dear oh love.”

He slides his thumb beneath the foreskin to touch Alain even more, eliciting another shuddering moan, another stuttering buck of his hips -

and then his hand is gone, and when Alain looks down to see why he sees Bert’s long fingers curled around Tommy’s wrist, drawing his hand away.

“I know you like to touch him, Tommy, for I do as well, and feel a right monster telling him no,” Bert says, though the wicked grin on his face and in his voice suggests he feels no such thing, “but ‘tisn’t the time yet for it.”

“Oh, you’re a cruel Bertie,” Tommy sighs, but he puts his hand back on Alain’s leg and leaves it there and doesn’t venture up towards the more delicate areas again. 

“And bossy,” Alain says against Tommy’s neck, mouthing at the line of his pulse. “He’s a dreadful tease, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know how you stand it,” Tommy says honestly, tilting his head to bare more of his neck. 

“He loves it,” Bert says, “and you’re just as much a tease yourself, Tommy, so I shan’t hear it from you.” He dips his head to attack the other side of Tommy’s neck, and they meet over his collarbones and exchange a wet and open-mouthed kiss.

Alain strokes a hand down the length of Tommy’s body, reveling in the warmth of his skin, the firmness of his trembling muscles beneath, the simple pleasure that touch makes bloom all through him. He delights in touching Tommy and in Tommy’s delight in being touched. With his fingertips he traces the shapes of the muscles and bones beneath Tommy’s skin, making him shiver and twitch and sigh, and sucks livid love marks into the soft, pale flesh of Tommy’s throat and shoulder and chest.

He tries to watch, as well, what Bert is doing, tries to match Tommy’s shivery little movements and quiet urgent noises to the movement of Bert’s slim and graceful hands, so glowingly golden against Tommy’s skin. When he reaches for Bert, slips into his mind as easily as an old and worn-in pair of boots, he feels Bert’s keen pleasure in both of them, the picture they make together, the aching joy of denying himself being touched as he wants, how good he knows it’ll be when he finally seeks his own release.

Every so often their hands meet while they pet Tommy, and just that touch, that brush of fingertips, sends electric heat racing through both of them. Their mouths meet too, again and again, over Tommy’s neck and chest, and he croons to them how beautiful they are when they kiss, how lovely the contrast between them, how lovely their love for each other.

“Tommy,” Bert breathes, reaching up to cup Tommy’s face.

“Mm?” Tommy catches Bert’s hand up in his own, turns his head to kiss Bert’s palm, and then takes his first two fingers into his mouth, cheeks hollowing as he sucks at them.

Alain can’t see exactly what he’s doing with his tongue, but he sees the way Bert’s mouth falls open and his eyes roll up, can hear the breathless, surprised moan that falls from his lips. He watches, transfixed, while Tommy strokes at the rest of Bert’s hand, tracing his prominent knuckles and the soft skin between fingers, the pad of his thumb and the knob of his wrist, his mind turning what his fingers feel into a blooming beautiful image, Bert’s skin see-through and all the mass of veins and bones and sinew curling and growing like vines under it, how delicate and clever the joints of his talented and deadly fingers, how well-honed the muscles of his hands -

“That’s beautiful, Tommy,” Alain sighs, and kisses the side of Tommy’s head.

“Tommy,” Bert says again. “Tommy, I want to fuck you -” Tommy hums around his fingers and Bert’s eyes shut, just for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is high and tight with arousal - “I want to get you ready, Tommy, alright? Are you ready for it?”

“Aye,” Tommy mumbles indistinctly, and then with a pang of regret that Alain feels as clear as if it were his own, pulls Bert’s hand free of his mouth. “Aye, Bertie, ready and more than ready. Want you in me, Bertie.”

Bert gives him a quick and sloppy kiss, then pivots and lays down flat on his belly, reaching over the side of the bed for his pack and the necessary items therein. Alain unabashedly admires the view, taking freely from Tommy’s mind the image of Bert this way rendered as bold lines of charcoal and paint, the deep shadows and orange firelight painting the sinewy curve and dip of his back, his tight buttocks and his slender thighs and the shadowy glimpse of the wet, warm place between them, down to the perfect dimples at the backs of his knees and the lovely lines of his calves and his knobby ankles, his long feet and toes, so sensuously warm and present that no ink on paper could ever do him justice.

Up Bert comes, his leather harness and carved stone longstick in one hand and the tin of grease they keep for just such occasions in the other. He gets up on his knees and looks them over, attentive as any general surveying the placement of his troops.  Alain can see, from the way the firelight gleams off his skin, that he’s wet down the insides of his thighs. How badly he wants to lick that slickness away, to bury his face there between Bert’s legs and slide his tongue between the lips of his cunt, to feel those strong thighs wrapped around his head, those long fingers tangled in his hair -!

“Not just yet, dear,” Bert says, amused. Whether Alain was speaking out loud or simply sending the thought strongly enough for Bert to feel it, he doesn’t know. “Might be if you’re a good boy I’ll let you finish me that way, though, for you know I do love your sweet mouth. Might be I’ll let Tommy do it, if he has any wits left by the time we’re through.”

“I’d like that,” Tommy says fervently. He loves doing that for Bertie, loves putting his clumsy hands and mouth to use, and he loves that part of Bert as well. So soft and warm it is, tucked up so nice and neat until someone spreads it open, and then he loves to touch and trace all the folds of flushed and reddened flesh, loves how slick and slippery it is, loves the way Bert touches his hair and face and neck and sighs his name while he’s doing it.

“We shall see,” Bert says. He puts his hands to his hips, looking them over, then nods once to himself, decisively. “Sit up against the headboard there, Al, and give Tommy the pillows. Tommy, I want you on your hands and knees in front of Al, but mind you pile those pillows up under yourself first, for I don’t want you throwing anything out during.”

While they move to arrange themselves as he’s told them, Bert pulls on his harness, settling it snugly about his hips and giving the stone phallus an experimental stroke. It’s obviously a made thing, for all that it’s so cunningly carved, but when he puts that harness on it becomes a part of him, sitting as natural as any other part of his body.  Alain sends the image to Tommy of Bert kneeling behind him, one hand resting gently on his hip and the other curled around his own cock, loosely pulling at it and then pushing the base of it back against himself. 

“Lovely,” Tommy sighs against Alain’s stomach, where his face has come to rest. “I’m a bit jealous of you, Bertie, for ‘twould be ever so much a convenience if I could take mine off and store it in a bag when I wasn’t using it.”

“It might make the world a better place, could all men do that,” Bert agrees. “I don’t know that I’d trade you. It seems a bit dreadful just to have it all flopping about in the breeze, everyone seeing if you’re randy… and none of you fellows have yet been able to tell me to my satisfaction how you manage wearing pants.” He meets Alain’s eyes over Tommy’s back and tips him a wink. “Mayhap all men should be in skirts instead, what say you?”

“Oh,” Tommy says enthusiastically, “I’d quite like that -” Abruptly he breaks his sentence off with a hissing, sucked in breath. 

Alain twines his fingers through Tommy’s hair and reaches for his mind, the better to feel what he can’t see. Bent over and propped up as he is on the soft pillows, he’s comfortable and feeling deliciously exposed, and Bert is rubbing at him with one slick fingertip, not pressing in at all but simply massaging his entrance and watching the way it makes him shiver.

“You’d be lovely in a skirt,” Bert says, bending to kiss Tommy’s back. “Those nice long legs of yours… I’d like to have you like this in one, Tommy boy, bent over with it pushed up just enough for me to get at you, how would you like that?”

“Mmm,” is all Tommy says. He curls one hand around Alain’s hip, squeezing at him as Bert pushes gently at him with his finger and then pulls back, teasing. “Mm, Bertie…”

“Or,” Bert continues, looking back up at Alain with a wicked grin, “maybe just get down on my knees beneath it and suck you in secret, Tommy, with us two the only ones who know, so long as you can keep a straight face on and don’t give the game away.” To Alain he sends the image of the three of them at table, of Alain sitting beside Tommy and listening to his breath grow heavy and the wet noises from beneath the table, of Alain feeling Tommy’s pleasure no matter how well he tries to hide it.

“Oh, Bertie,” Tommy sighs, arching languidly back against the press of Bert’s hand, “you know - you know I couldn’t, though, you know I’d…” He trails off into panting silence.

Bert is working at him in earnest now, muscles of his arm flexing as he slides his finger in and out, slow and steady. “Say true,” he says, “you would, so I might as well lay you back on the table and have you out in the open like that, in front of everyone - in front of Jamie, eh? Wouldn’t that be a treat for him to see you done up all pretty and squirming with your cock in my mouth? Something nice for him to think of next time he’s playing with himself?”

Thomas moans out loud, his mind a whirl of images - Jamie’s dark eyes on him, Jamie’s lovely eyes drinking him in, Jamie’s red right hand wrapped around his own slim, beautiful cock, thinking of Thomas as he takes his pleasure, eyes shut and lower lip caught between his teeth, so beautiful, like the rolling blue tide and cold clear water over perfect round river rocks and something precious and perfect, like a pearl in an oyster - something for Tommy to see, only Tommy, something Alain feels almost guilty for pulling from the current of Tommy’s thoughts.

Alain runs his fingers through Tommy’s hair and down across his shoulders, focusing instead on the way the tingling pleasure of that touch spreads down his body and meets the tighter, hotter rising pleasure of Bert’s fingers in him, so he’s all a-shiver with it all over, and on how when he rocks back into Bert’s fingers his cock rubs against the pillows propped beneath his hips, and on how he feels so safe and warm held between them, so under the water again, so quiet with the wavery surface sun shining down on him and the smooth round rocks beneath his knees.

“Tommy,” Bert says, leaning over him, chest and belly pressed tight against his back - the cool stone of the longstick jutting between his legs, against the crease of his thigh, the hard pressure of it a promise of what’s to come - and then again he says his name, and again, before Tommy mumbles back a noise. “Tommy, I want you to do something for me. Are you listening?”

“Nnhmm?”

Bert chuckles and presses a kiss to his shoulderblade. “Are you ready for my cock, Tommy?” He does something with his fingers, arm flexing, and Tommy shudders and gasps his name. “You feel ready to me, dear, are you?”

“Nnnyes,” Tommy groans, “yes, yes, oh, Bertie, please, want you, yes, whatever you want -”

“Good, good. Such a good boy, Tommy,” Bert croons, kissing him again. “While I’m fucking you, Tommy, I want you to please Alain with your mouth, for we’ve neglected him quite dreadfully -” this time Alain and Thomas moan at the same time, and Alain doesn’t know from whose throat the sound came originally - “but I don’t want you to let him come, alright? For I’m a selfish man, I am, and I want to do that myself. Alright, Tommy?”

“Alright,” Tommy whispers, and dips his head obediently down to mouth at the tip of Alain’s cock. 

“I’ll be quite cross with both of you if you finish too soon,” Bert says, looking at Alain and offering another wink.

Though he badly wants to protest, all Alain does is pull Tommy’s hair up out of the way. All the words are too far away, anyway, and the hot pleasure of Tommy’s soft lips and tongue is so immediate. He lets his eyes slide closed and reaches for Bert, for Bert’s view of Tommy all spread out and quivering eager for it, for Bert’s view of his own cock as he holds it steady and presses it slowly inside Tommy, stroking at his hip with his other hand.

“Easy, Tommy,” he murmurs as he eases in, as Tommy’s body opens around him. “Easy, there you go, you’re doing so good, is it good? Tell me how you like it, Tommy, I want to know I’m being good to you.”

Tommy moans incoherently, the sound vibrating against Alain’s cock. His mind is all love, all pleasure, no words anymore but just a jumble of feelings and images, beauty and warmth and safety and heat, pleasure at doing well, at being good, at being good for them, at being wanted, at being filled and full and held.

All of that Alain takes and gives to Bert. He pulls Bert into the pool of their joined consciousness, so that all of them are in each other and none know quite where they end and the others begin, so that Alain shudders and moans with every gentle thrust of Bert’s cock into Tommy’s body, so that when Tommy pulls off Alain’s cock to keep him from spilling too early, it’s Bert who gasps and swears, so that Tommy - their conduit, their magnifying lens, through whom it is all so much clearer and more immediate - comes suddenly and without warning and without being touched, squirming and grinding jerkily against the pillows and moaning wordlessly, his mind awash in their shared pleasure.

Alain strokes his hair and Cuthbert strokes his back and hips while he shudders and trembles and comes slowly back to himself. It takes a while, for he was deep under, and when he does surface there’s a sour thread of guilt all through his languid liquid post-orgasmic pleasure.

“Sorry,” he mumbles into Alain’s belly, “I didn’t mean to - not so early -”

“Hush,” Bert says, with a gentle laugh. “‘Tis only a compliment to my skills as a lover, Tommy, nothing more, and naught that you could help. Not to mention -” he laughs again, deeper and more wickedly, “we’ve the whole long night, should you get it up again.”

He pulls slowly free of Tommy’s body, eliciting another shiver and a throaty little noise, and skims the harness down and off, and puts it to the side to be taken care of later. Tenderly, with great care, he urges Tommy over onto his side and then his back, and kneels over his chest.

“Would you still like to lick me out, Tommy dearest?”

“Oh,” Tommy says, looking raptly up at him, “yes, I very much would.”

Bert shifts to kneel over his face, steadying himself with one hand on the headboard. Tommy’s hands come up, one to cup his hip and one his narrow buttock, and he goes to work with audible enthusiasm. 

Because Tommy’s body is so weakly stitched, Bert can’t ride his face with the unbridled vigor he might do with Alain; instead he must keep still, and the strain of it is obvious in how tightly his knuckles are clenched on the headboard, in the way his thighs and belly tremble and twitch, in the high desperate noises he makes.

Alain levers himself up to his knees and leans in to kiss Bert. He winds a hand into his hair, pulling just a bit the way he knows Bert likes, and pinches at one of his nipples with the fingers of the other, swallowing Bert’s sudden gasp. Mindful of Tommy lying beneath them, he presses in as close as he can to rut his aching cock against Bert’s hip.

“Reached the end of your patience, have you?” Bert asks. His voice is high and strained, his laugh a breathless giggle. He reaches down and wraps his free hand around Alain, stroking him exquisitely slowly. “Can’t say - oh, gods,  _ Tommy _ \- can’t say as I blame you.”

Even so saying, he continues his torment. He doesn’t speed up, nor tighten his grip, but just keeps pulling Alain off with the same steady slowness, never faltering even when he starts to tremble, breath hitching, and whimper Tommy’s name out like a prayer, nor even when he finally comes.  Only then does he grip Alain and stroke him in earnest. “Come now,” he says into Alain’s mouth, “come for me, love, I want to feel you, come now -” And within a few short seconds Alain does, bucking into Bert’s hand and clutching at him, mind blooming open in the moment of his climax, reaching for Bert and Tommy both.

They stay like that for a stretch of moments, kissing languidly as they regain their breath, and then pull apart to lay once more on either side of Tommy. Sleep comes over them quick enough, tired from the day's travel as well as the evening's exertion as they all three are. Cuthbert and Alain both stir when Jamie comes in, and Cuthbert shifts to let him slide in between him and Thomas, and they all four pass the rest of the night like that, wrapped up in each other, sharing warmth and dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> The most useful thing The Wind Through The Keyhole added to this body of literature is the fact that dildos exist in Gilead _and_ that there's a special, silly fantasy name for them.


End file.
